1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to network systems and, more particularly, to an execution unit for a network device.
2. Description of Related Art
Network devices, such as switches and routers, connect together to form a network. These devices facilitate communication between parties connected to the network.
During operation, conventional network devices perform a variety of common protocol-processing primitive functions, such as bit-field inserts and extracts, shift operations, bit- and byte-stuffing and unstuffing, time-space interleaving, byte-remapping, and primitive cryptography operations. To implement these functions, the network devices typically include dedicated components for performing each of these functions.